Underground Conduit Fire Evacuates City Hall, Causes Power Outage

BEVERLY, MA - An underground conduit fire caused evacuations of City Hall and the Police Department Tuesday morning, as well as area power outages that continued into the afternoon.

The fire department said an underground fire was to blame for a strong odor that caused the evacuations. Police and fire quickly arrived, as did National Grid.

"We're working on it," the Fire Department said over the phone.

No injuries were reported.

The outage affected the whole area, including nearby businesses. Odd Fellows' Hall is among the other buildings evacuated, local sources say.

National Grid says more than 50 are without power in Beverly and expected power to be restored around 4 p.m. Meanwhile, nearly 3,500 were without power in Salem, though there is no indication the outages were related.

City Clerk Wes Slate initially posted on Facebook that a manhole fire was the cause of the evacuations and other early reports had a gas leak.

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